No more Public Unions. Most Americans are sick of their jackbooted intimidation tactics. Their time has passed.

Last week, a lawyer for a Louisiana teachers union wrote a letter to 95 private schools that have agreed to participate in the Pelican States new school voucher program. His message? That vouchers are unconstitutional and if schools accept them, We will have no alternative other than to institute litigation against [you].

Nice little private school you got there. Itd be a shame if an angry education monopoly sunk it with groundless lawsuits.

The letter demonstrates the unions desperation. Teachers unions hate vouchers because they require schools to compete on cost and quality, which means theyre unlikely to increase union rolls by hiring extra teachers. And the unions have every reason to be worried about Louisianas initiative: More than 10,000 kids have already signed up for the four-month-old program, five times as many as the state superintendent expected to sign up by this point.

Bill Maurer of the Institute for Justice, a libertarian public interest law firm, tells me that this legal intimidation is unprecedented. The Institute for Justice and the Alliance for School Choice have retained a lawyer to defend these schools pro bono.

Louisianans interest in vouchers grew out of the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina. In the wake of the storm, which destroyed many of New Orleans schools, state legislators instituted a series of education reforms targeting students in the impoverished city. One of the reforms was a New Orleans-specific voucher program; another allowed independently run, largely non-unionized public charter schools to open in the city. Those reforms have proven both popular and successful. Based on this success, Gov. Bobby Jindal made passing a statewide school choice bill one of his top priorities after winning re-election with two-thirds of the vote in 2011.

This is not about the next election. This is not about the next poll. This is about the next generation, Jindal repeatedly told state legislators. If we want to preserve the American Dream for our children, if we want them to do better than we did, then it is important they get a great education...

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